This AUG was a smaller version of the rifle that saw service in numerous Western countries. The magazine was fitted behind the trigger assembly which contributed greatly to its shorter length. A telescopic sight and laser designator was fixed on top of the barrel assembly. Nishin aimed, watching the red dot sweep around the dingy room. Very nice. There were six 30-round magazines of 9mm ammunition. The magazines were clear plastic, which allowed the firer to keep track of expenditure without having to remove the magazine from the weapon.
There was a safety, but no selector lever such as the M 16 or AK-47 had. The AUG was designed for a more professional shooter. A slight pull on the trigger fired one round. Pulling the trigger all the way to the rear fired the weapon on automatic. A stubby suppressor was fitted on the tip of the barrel that extended forward of the front plastic grip. Nishin had to trust that the 9mm ammunition was subsonic, otherwise there would be no reason for the suppressor. Nishin carefully disassembled the gun and checked every piece to make sure it was functional. He would not put it past the Yakuza to give him a gun with a filed-down firing pin. Satisfied that he could find nothing wrong, he reassembled the gun. Then he inserted a magazine and pulled back the charging handle. He fired a shot at the wood frame around the closet. A round splintered the wood, the gun making just the slightest sound. Nishin took the magazine out, cleared the chamber, and put the gun back in the case.
A Browning High Power 9mm automatic pistol, along with a shoulder holster, was also in the case. A reliable pistol. After checking it as he had the AUG, Nishin strapped the holster on, then slipped his jacket over it. He slid the case with the AUG under the bed.
The room was on the second floor of a six-story hotel. Nishin had picked it as he’d been taught in the terrorist camp in the Middle East so many years ago for its transient and illicit clientele, mostly prostitutes and drug addicts. He hadn’t even had to say a word when getting the room. He’d shoved two hundred-dollar bills at the clerk and received a key in return. Very convenient and inconspicuous, just as he’d expected.
Of course, if pressed, Nishin could have spoken in English and presented all the proper documents to prove he was an American. Nishin was no stranger to America or this type of work. The Black Ocean Society had seen to that and his present cover.
Nishin did not know where he had been born or who his parents had been. His earliest memories were of the Home place. It was where the Black Ocean Society raised its operatives. Perhaps he had been sold to the Society by a family with too many mouths to feed. Perhaps he was an orphan whom the Society had taken under its wings. He didn’t know, they had never told him, and he didn’t care.
He’d been cared for and schooled by the Society from the very beginning of his memories. Trained in foreign languages, martial arts, weapons, covert operations, communications — all the black arts. And above all was loyalty to the Sun Goddess, the Emperor, the Genoysha and the Society, the last two being one in the same in his mind.
When he was sixteen he had begun his fieldwork. There was always some group somewhere, protesting something. The only requirement was that the group had taken up arms and were willing to use them. The Black Ocean Society sent its operative students to such overseas groups, regardless of the group’s cause. The key was to learn and gain experience while staying away from the eye of Japanese law.
Libya. Lebanon. El Salvador. Yugoslavia. A short stint in Mexico with the rebels in the south when they rose up, then slipping away when a deal was struck with the government. Then to Chechnya. Nishin. had been in on the planning of the raid into Russia and the seizing of the hostages that had changed the course of that war.
Just two years ago, after Chechnya, the Genoysha had finally ruled that Nishin was able to do Society work and would no longer be risked getting experience. Only one in twenty of those Nishin had grown up with made it to that level. Many died gaining their experience, others simply weren’t good enough and were slotted elsewhere in support positions.
Putting aside memories of the past, Nishin left the room to take care of other preparations. He felt the soreness in his limbs as he walked the streets. He wasn’t one hundred percent recovered yet from his ocean experience. Someone else should have been sent, except for two things: he had been briefed on what was in North Korea, and he was one of the few operatives the Society had with field time in America. Despite its apparently open society, America was actually a very difficult place for covert, foreign operatives to work. The American intelligence agencies were more proficient than the media reported.
An all-night supermarket beckoned. Nishin walked in and wandered the aisles until he found the three items he was looking for. He paid and returned to the motel by a different route, occasionally backtracking to make sure he wasn’t being followed.
Back in the security of his room, Nishin removed the objects from the bag: a clear Plexiglas ice scraper with a rubber handle, a file, and a roll of medical tape. He began filing down the ice scraper. After an hour he had turned the wide edge into a single point. He took the newly formed weapon and used the tape to secure it vertically to his stomach, above his waist; the one place the man who had patted him down had not checked. The plastic would not be picked up by the metal detector.
The next time Nishin had to visit the Yakuza, he would be ready. If action was necessary. He thought of the old man and the smile on Nishin’s face was not a pretty sight.
Nishin turned off the light and lay down on the floor next to the bed. The AUG was locked and loaded next to him, his right hand lightly curled around the pistol grip.
A block away, the man who had been listening to Nishin’s Yakuza meeting lowered the lid on the metal case that held the laptop computer. He slid through a curtain to the front of the rental van. He drove to the hotel he was staying at. It was much nicer than Nishin’s. He parked in the garage and retired to his room.
CHAPTER 4
“I got your message,” Lake said to Jonas. A group of men wearing camouflage pants, brown T-shirts, and hats with various Patriot logos on them were sitting at a table on the main floor of the bar, arguing loudly and drunkenly about what had happened years previously in Waco and Ruby Ridge and the last year in Montana. There was no disagreement about ideology, just the basic manly desire to be more outraged than the fellow sitting next to you. If they’d been talking about the World Series it would have been no big deal, but they were talking about bombs and guns and hate, and that made it more than just idle talk.
Lake had heard it all so many times before and he’d even said it all when required. The party line was easy. He assumed that was why it was a party line. Check your brains at the door, no thinking required. But somebody was doing some thinking, that was for sure, as events of the previous week on the Golden Gate Bridge had shown him.
“I got a list of exactly what they want,” Jonas said, echoing the message that he’d given Lake over the phone. They were seated in their usual booth. Lake had met Jonas thirteen months ago after he’d begun working the west coast. The Ranch had access to all FBI and aTF. records and from those Lake had managed to get a very good idea of where to go and who to see. The other agencies couldn’t arrest a lot of the people in their files because the evidence wouldn’t stand up in court. The Ranch could use the people in those files to run their operations and did so without a second thought.
Lake had used Jonas as a broker in three weapons deals so far and since Jonas hadn’t been arrested and the weapons were still out on the street, he had the man’s conditional trust. That was something a normal federal agent couldn’t do.